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Maximilian Tatton-Brown

About Maximilian Tatton-Brown

There’s a common founder myth (read ‘cliche’) that goes something like this:

“From a young age, I found myself fascinated by how things worked. Once I took the TV apart to see how the little people got inside. Just like Steve Jobs, this is why I think the back of the cabinet/ inside of the device must be as beautiful as every other bit.”

There’s nothing worse than shying away from your responsibilities. And don’t get me wrong, much of the PR industry’s weakness at the moment has come quite duly from the lack of initiative and competence of its many many members.

But PR is a market highly dependent on its ecosystem and interconnected stakeholders. I’ll never forget the moment as a young account manager, when I realised that the best work I’ll ever do will be defined by what clients sign off.

I’ve written before about the difficulties of the word ‘content’. It’s too often bandied around in discussions that lose sight of its meaning to viewers versus its importance in their strategy. And that blindness is costly.

But you quickly find yourself drawing on it because it’s the common reference. Much of the time, that will remain true.

Sometimes, however, it’s worth thinking again to see if there’s another descriptor more suitable. Perhaps another descriptor that can focus on a different detail and a different priority and help you concentrate on what matters.

We all use email differently so here’s my context: I run Inbox Zero + a simple Getting Things Done policy to my email and task list. I’ve been using Mailbox to triage and smash through my inbox, both on mobile and with the new desktop beta.

I’m a firm believer that if you read an email and don’t take some kind of action with it, it festers in your unconscious.

Inbox by Gmail appears to be made for me — and indeed anyone who appreciates that improving your most common processes pays dividends every day.

It’s a long time since a tweet meant just 140 characters and a little metadata for location.

It’s time to start asking what happens when Twitter Cards become little units of web in their own right.

With the launch of Audio Cards, we’re seeing one of the most distinct demonstrations of this potential so far.

While previous Cards could include sign-ups for email newsletters or allow you to play content directly in your stream, the new Audio Card has added a whole new function, and hints at a whole new dynamic.

At one stage, I worked with an email marketing company founded, in part, by a clever Croydonite called Tink Taylor.

And one of the biggest things I discovered is that there are dozens of lessons in email that can be applied to smart, modern PR campaigns.

Think about deliverability, for example. Between Gmail’s multiple inboxes and overzealous spam filters, how suicidal does an agency have to be to risk its domain not reaching inboxes by spamming out messages indiscriminately?

And how many activate authentication systems like DKIM, just to be safe?